Elle King is an American recording artist whose musical style encompasses country, soul, folk, rock, and blues. She loves banjos and hobos. Born in Ohio and raised in Brooklyn, Elle retains her roots in a style that blends those worlds of both grit and mid-western charm. She ties her old soul and rock 'n' roll influences into a sound that’s all her own. King started playing guitar at age 13 and later picked up a banjo, inspired by the Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs records her family listened to. She pinpoints the day her life changed to her ninth birthday, when her stepfather gave her the first album by hard-rocker girls the Donnas. “I put that on and that was it,” she says. “I wanted to play rock and roll and be a girl and do it. I started listening to the Runaways and Blondie -- all the rad chicks.” King released her four-song debut The Elle King EP on Fat Possum Records. She was spotlighted as an “Artist to Watch” by Esquire Magazine and Refinery 29, and the EP garnered favorable press from Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Teen Vogue, Perez Hilton, and Vanity Fair. The Austin Chronicle raved about her “shockingly sexy-sorrowful songsmithery” and her “sweetheart-with-a-knife voice that promises potentially dangerous intimacy on a grand, spooky scale.” The EP track “Playing for Keeps” was chosen as the theme song for VH1’s Mob Wives Chicago and was featured in the national tv ad campaign for AMC's award-winning Mad Men. Elle has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman and has toured with Of Monsters and Men, Train, and Michael Kiwanuka. She is currently working on her RCA full-length debut album slated for an early 2014 release.
http://elleking.com